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Thursday, January 10, 2013

So after a great day with my best friend, I come home to realize that my mother and my grand-parents are extremely worried and shocked at my audacity (oh really?) of staying out after 7:30 in the evening. Well, let me just thank the lecherous men we see on and off these days...yes, the same men who treat women as their private property. And let me just thank them again for I am almost grounded for the first time ever.

It took some time for my blithe mind to grasp the gravity of the gory Delhi case. Having said that, I must also admit that I haven’t ignored the news, which makes me shudder each time I see/read about it in the media.

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of peace walks, public protests to bring in radical changes, Facebook statuses, tweets, Facebook profile pictures, chain e-mails etc. And sadly, people expect the whole lot of cranked up molesters to change overnight. Tch tch! Who are we kidding anyway? While people were protesting against such atrocities, a few more similar cases were reported in Delhi.

Everywhere around the world, we see “Indians” bragging about modernization, globalization, implying the importance of women and their transition from the archaic times to the current period. Practically and sadly, we do not see much transition. In fact, I see no transition at all. Honestly, the olden days seem to be better.

And then creeps in the “oh-so-famous” conjectures and baseless theories about women, their behaviour, their attire, and the list just goes on. These incidents remind me of this wonderful book called ‘A Calendar Too Crowded’ that I have read a year ago. This book talks about the twelve months in the life of a woman and the final cause of the book is to create an awareness to protect women and their rights. Books and stories like these can bring in such awareness but like everything, even this awareness begins at home. We need to see more of books like these which depict reality rather than painting a glossy picture of women, their happiness and their safety.
Instead of suppressing girls and their interests at home, it is rather advisable to instill some ethics into boys. No, seriously! Our country has come a long way in terms of technology, education, art, cinema, innovation etc. And women have contributed a lot. A lot is an understatement though. Despite all these facts, we still see terrible treatment meted out against women.

A stricter law, a better use of technology, more awareness, more education in schools, and of course, severe punishments will definitely help. India is the only country that shows sheer respect towards Goddesses and it is such an irony that we pray and prey on the same fraternity. Such a shame!